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Hillary Clinton knows quite well what it’s like to be at the center of a right-wing conspiracy.
In fact, it’s hard to find a crazed right-wing conspiracy that doesn’t involve Clinton somehow.
And I think, in that light, her efforts to recoup legal fees spent fending off a conspiracy theory spun by former President Donald Trump himself takes on added meaning.
On Monday, attorneys for the former secretary of state asked a judge to make Trump pay the expenses Clinton shoveled out to fight off a suit in which Trump had alleged racketeering and sought millions in bogus damages.
Trump filed the lawsuit in March — that is, six years after he ran against Clinton for president — and claimed that Clinton and a host of figures in Democratic politics had “maliciously conspired to weave a false narrative” that his campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 race.
Clinton’s attorneys wrote Monday that “a reasonable attorney would never have filed this suit, let alone continued to prosecute it after multiple Defendants’ motions to dismiss highlighted its fundamental and incurable defects.”
A judge essentially catapulted the suit out of court in September, denouncing it as a “waste” of judicial resources and highlighting “glaring structural deficiencies” in Trump’s argument. In his ruling, Judge Donald Middlebrooks said Trump “is seeking to flaunt a 200-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him, and this Court is not the appropriate forum.”
I think Hillary Clinton is right to agree.
Just to go over the facts: Trump openly sought Russia’s assistance in the 2016 campaign. And he got it. Russia helped disseminate documents that Kremlin-backed hackers had stolen from the Clinton campaign. (The documents conveniently began to be released the same day that a video of Trump admitting to sexual harassment was published.)
Trump has repeatedly claimed that an investigation into his campaign’s conduct found no collusion or evidence of obstruction.
But that’s a lie.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign found that Team Trump officials had welcomed Russian interference, and Mueller said his office merely declined to charge Trump with obstruction for meddling in the investigation (in other words: not “no obstruction”).
Trump’s March lawsuit was an effort to build on the mythology he often uses to rile up his base — his false claim of being under siege by “the swamp,” a purported cabal of evil politicians and Washington insiders. I’ve been on the record saying I think punishing Trump financially for his antidemocratic lies is arguably the best bet for deterring him. And that’s why I think Clinton is spot on for pursuing this.
Aside from former President Barack Obama, no one has been more viciously targeted with conservative disinformation than Clinton. In that vein, the invasion of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home, and the brutal assault of her husband by a right-wing conspiracy theorist, show that opportunistic lies shouldn’t be taken lightly in politics. Especially opportunistic lies targeting female lawmakers, an issue that has gained attention in recent years.
It’s a long shot, but perhaps having to hand over some cash to his sworn enemy could be quite the incentive for Trump not to tread similar waters in the future.